Dark Waters
by kaiserklee
Summary: Dark!Water!Anna. They battle often, the two of them, until it becomes routine and Elsa almost finds the days without a fierce match of water and ice to be mundane. When Anna begins her so-called off-duty visits, Elsa is even more confused. Drabble format.
1. Water and Ice

**Dark Waters**

It becomes such a regular occurrence, their battle, that hardly anyone so much as bats an eye at the deluge of water, the torrent of ice raging about the coast and surging across the skies of Arendelle.

_How long can you keep this up, Elsaaaaaa?_

From where she stands at the very peak of Arendelle Castle, Princess Elsa can look out and see the infinitesimally small city sprawled out far, far below, the lives of its denizens tiny, tiny things. Snowflakes flicker through the howling storm, intermixed with drops of freezing-cold water, but she keeps her eyes fixed on the coast.

She sees a lone figure standing atop a spiral of water, and even from afar, Elsa imagines she can see her foe. Princess Anna is her antithesis. Where Elsa stands tall and regal, Anna stands with her body bent like the curve of a bow pulled taut. Elsa trains her features into an expressionless mask, but Anna smiles widely and her eyes are alight with mad glee. Elsa stands and counters her enemy with carefully measured movements, summons her powers with grand, sweeping gestures; Anna dances on the water, an uncatchable specter that never once stops leaping across the roiling waves.

_Don't get too distracted, Elsa. Winning by default is booooring._

There are two battles going on, the one that is direct and brutal, and the one taking place in the skies. Elsa battles Anna for control over the weather, trying to freeze each and every droplet of water that escapes the cold burst she launched up above, but she's learned that complete victory is impossible. After the first few cuts from water pressurized into thin blades, Elsa learned to surround herself with a barrier of ice at all times.

And all the while, Anna sends tendrils of water whipping across the air, and Elsa has to freeze each one and redirect it. Where there powers meet, for that fraction of a second when the water is still Anna and the ice spreading over it is Elsa, their minds connect. Elsa sees glimpses of the mind behind the other princess, the other one who is burdened by their gift of magic, but she sees none of the weight that she herself carries. Anna _revels _in her power.

_There's no point regretting something you can't ever change, _Anna thinks_, and besides, being normal is overrated. _Elsa never responds, but maybe Anna can tell her thoughts anyway because before the link winks out of existence, she always hears a saccharine laugh.

Elsa freezes some of the rain into a barrage of icicles, each one as thick as the arm of a grown man and sharpened to cruel points, and launches them at Anna. They cross the distance between them so quickly they resemble shooting stars; Anna is forced to abandon her spiral but regains her footing on yet another whirlpool bursting upwards from the sea.

Anna pivots on her heel and swings her arms up and around, and a very similar barrage of water flies back towards Elsa. She blocks each one with a wall of ice, never once looking away from Anna. Two geysers of water erupt high into the sky, one on either side of Arendelle Castle, each one reaching as tall as the building itself, and they conjoin above Elsa before slamming down together.

Harder to freeze that one, but still doable. Elsa reaches up and forces her power into the crushing wave of water, fighting both Anna and the inexorable push of gravity; but slowly, surely, ice snakes from the tip and around, capping the bulbous end and then up along the entirety of its length to leave something like a heart-shaped sculpture around the air.

_Your move, Elsa._

She frowns at being _handed _the initiative, as though she had not won it – Anna laughs again and whispers something about her being petty – but Elsa knows to capitalize. She flings her hand out, fingers curling into a claw, and the fjord around Anna begins to ice over. First the surface, but her power sinks deep and latches to water further and further down, until a good meter of the sea is frozen.

Anna stamps her foot before the ice can snake its way up her platform. Instantly, the ice flakes and shatters, and the geyser Anna stands on undulates wildly as though shaking off the remaining frost. It raises her higher and higher, and Elsa can see clearly when she drags both hands up through the air, lips pulling back into a laborious snarl. From beneath her ice, water drills upwards and shatters their obstacle. Anna meets her eyes, and then all the water surges forward as one.

Elsa throws out both her hands and meets the water with ice. Somewhere between the coast and the city proper, Anna and Elsa meet. Water freezes and melts, ice melts and refreezes, again and again until neither of them can tell where their own gift ends and where the other's power begins. It's a perpetual struggle, both ends unable to push any further, and pressure builds and builds and builds…

Shards of ice and bullets of water explode outwards with a thunderous roar, and even Elsa is forced to close her eyes to avoid the backlash.

By the time she opens her eyes again, the waters are calm and Anna is gone.

_See you next time, Elsa._


	2. Breaking the Ice

Elsa sees her again in the dead of night at the most unlikely of places.

"It's not that weird," Anna says, walking atop the water of the fountain in the courtyard and taking time to pose with the carved angels in the center. "You do realize that your entire kingdom is surrounded by water, right? If I don't announce myself, I can make my way in pretty easily."

"And you are here to…?"

"Just thought I'd drop by and visit."

Anna hops out of the fountain, not a single drop of water dripping from her shoes or dress. She instead sits on the edge and feigns being an ordinary princess, an ordinary girl, and she pats the spot next to her with such genuine friendliness – the smile on her face lacks its usual predatory gleam – that Elsa takes the offered seat despite herself. It's only after that she realizes there is an entire pool of water behind her and at any moment it can lance through her back.

"You don't have to look so tense," Anna laughs. "Freeze the water over if you want, I don't care."

Part of Elsa wants to refuse simply because Anna is telling her to do it, and complying would show weakness. Another, more practical part of her makes her turn and freeze the water.

"Wow, you _really _don't trust me."

"We tried to kill each other two days ago," Elsa says, voice dryer than the ice behind them. "Forgive me for being cautious."

"Oh, come on. That was official business. I'm off-duty now," Anna grumbles. She scuffs the ground with her boots, and Elsa notices that her crown is indeed missing.

"Can you really just leave your kingdom like this?"

"I can get here and back in about two hours. You'd be surprised how fast waves move."

Elsa shakes her head. "Time isn't the issue. How can you abandon your duties and leave?"

"What duties?" Anna laughs so hard she heaves and her entire body bends inwards, and Elsa feels the water of the fountain straining under her ice. "What, do they actually trust you with anything? Other than standing around posing, I mean."

"I'm here to protect the people–"

"From _what?_"

"You," Elsa says pointedly, and Anna snorts.

"Face it, the only reason they keep you around is because of me. And the only reason _they _keep _me _around is because of you. Therefore," Anna says, looking proud of her deductive abilities, "I am off-duty, and as a result, so are you."

Elsa frowns and says nothing. Something about that strikes her as off, but it makes sense. Maybe it seems off _because _it makes sense. If Anna isn't a threat, then what exactly does she need to be doing…?

"Hey," Anna says suddenly. "Can I break the ice?"

"You told me to freeze it," Elsa says, eyeing the other girl warily.

Anna bursts out laughing again, this time actually falling off the fountain and rolling about on the ground in perhaps the most undignified display Elsa has ever seen. It takes almost a full minute for her to calm down, and Anna ends up sprawled on the ground looking up at the deepening frown on Elsa's face.

"What's so funny?"

"I meant break the ice like _break the ice_, not break _your _ice," Anna giggles.

"I still don't understand."

"You're hopeless! You know, break the ice and make the atmosphere a little less awkward?" When Elsa opens her mouth in a tiny _o_, Anna asks, "All right, what's your favorite color?"

Elsa's mind races to predict the consequences of the potential information leak, and whether letting Anna know something as innocent as her favorite color might backfire in some unforeseeable way in the distant future. Anna clambers back up to the fountain and hums during the silence in between, feet kicking back and forth.

"Mine is _blood orange_, like my hair," Anna offers.

"That's not a color."

"It is. My hair is that color, and that color is the color of my hair."

"You're making that up. Blood isn't even orange," Elsa insists, and she knows she's taking the bait but it's simply so ridiculous that she can't help herself. "You may as well say _night gold_."

"That exists too," Anna says. She points up at the night sky, and Elsa follows with her eyes to see stars twinkling a bright–

Elsa sighs and Anna cheers in victory.

"I'm still not telling you," Elsa says.

"Yeah, because the world would obviously end if you told me your favorite color." Anna rolls her eyes and stands up, brushes the dust and dirt off her dress, then before Elsa can react waves her hand. Water drills a hole through the ice of the fountain and morphs into a shark, but Anna doesn't launch it at her as Elsa expects.

"You're leaving," Elsa says, not entirely sure if her statement might be a question but positive that she is quite a bit more disappointed than she ought to be.

"Another time," Anna says, and she mounts the shark in some strange denial of physics that Elsa cannot understand. Then again, she herself manages feats with ice that most would balk at.

"And will that time be off-duty, or…?"

Anna grins. "We'll see. Which would you prefer?"

Elsa turns her head and Anna launches away, the shark propelled by a jet of water at its tail. After her departure, Elsa finds herself unsure of what to do. She had planned on a quick walk around the courtyard before sleep, but…

She heads to the libraries, determined to prove that _blood orange _is not, in fact, a color.


End file.
